1984 was not an Instructional Guide

The 20th year anniversary of the Tienanmen Square Massacre came and went with little notice here, many because so few Chinese people know that anything happened. Dave did a blog post a while ago about bravery and it's role in leadership, noting that we don't exactly see a lot of either from the students around here. While I certainly agree that the students here aren't exactly good at standing up for themselves I think it's more complicated than that. This isn't exactly a top rated school, it comes out at about 500 out of 750 or 400 out of 600 depending on the list. These students, while I do admire the work ethic and intelligence of some of them, are not the future leaders of China, they're the future low level managers and secretaries. The picture I posted on the 4th is maybe the most stunning example of bravery ever. One man standing in front of tanks during a brutal crackdown that left thousands dead. In one picture that was in the New York Times on the 4th the same scene is shown from another angle with the so called tank man in the distance while in the foreground most people run for cover. To say that the reason that no one stands up to the government it because there is a lack of bravery misses the point. The communists are incredibly good at exercising a sort of authoritarian control that probably outstrips almost all other authoritarian governments ever.

Thinking back on 1984 it's remarkable just how similar what the Chinese are doing here is to what the fictional government in England was doing. For one thing the images of Big Brother in 1984 are strikingly similar to the Mao images which still adorn many places in China. While Big Brother in 1984 was not necessarily a person in the book, Mao's legacy has been altered so much as to render the Mao Chinese people know today a completely different person from the historical man. Also much as in the book history in China is subject to change. In one scene in Red Dust, a book about traveling in China written by a dissident in the 80's, he notes that in China even history changes fast. Despite killing tens of millions of people Mao is said to have been "70% right." The conquest of Tibet was a "peaceful liberation." There is even a sort of newspeak in China where words like harmony take on a second dangerous meaning, the government is constantly talking about things which either do or do not promote a harmonious society. People here sometimes use harmonized to mean removed or censored, as in that book was harmonized. People who don't fit in with the party's vision of history also have a way of disappearing from the books. The former Premiere who was placed under house arrest for the rest of his life after supporting a move towards democracy is essentially an unknown person here.

I think the single oddest connection though is the way in China the internet watches you. Much like the TV's in 1984 which are really a means of control the communists use the internet as a gigantic monitoring device to look into the lives of their citizens. They also like 1984 co-opt a huge number of the smarter people into the party where they can better keep an eye on them, joining the party also means attending a lot of propaganda classes. All these means of control make it incredibly hard for average citizens to say anything against the government. But even despite all this there are people who speak out. People who know that they'll be tortured and murdered but still speak out against what they know is wrong. China likes to see its self as learning from other countries but sometimes the lessons are terrifying. I think they see books on excess and oppression like 1984 as instructional guides on how to hold down your own people, because like any despotic government the thing the communists are most afraid of is simply the people of China.